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They have offered to settle the case out of court. I accepted. The payment is full amount of disputed charges and court fees but no interest.

I have received a copy of QA from YB today. They entered two witnesses and one month to attempt settlement out of the court. Apparently still trying to stall the process as long as possible.

26/07/06 got a letter with allocation questionary and copy of defense. Here are some relevant parts of it: Could legal mings out here please have a look at it and explain what the references to Supply of Goods and Services Act and Unfair Contract Terms act mean. It is my understanding that I have to convince a judge that p.7 in the defence is false. How do I do that? What evidence shall I provide? What shall I do after I send the allocation questionary? Thank You.

The online claim is submited. It is expected to be processed on 24/06/06.

Hello, I have quite a predicament on my hands. Recently I have been refused a number of credit applications so I have checked my credit history and it turned out that I have there the following record. Name and Address: ******************** Company name: TELEWEST BROADBAND Account type: Communications Started: 25/06/2002 Current Balance: 77 Settled On: 27/09/2004 File updated for period to: 03/10/2004 Status History: [1]11112111 (brackets indicate most recent status) [] As far as I understand it effectively means that I still owe them 77 quid and they have settled the account in Sep 2004 without pursuing me for this money out of goodnes of their heart. It also means that my account was always in arrears. Admitedly I was not very accurate paying in time I usually paid when they sent me a reminder to pay. I had no idea that they will be so harsh and ruin my otherwise very good credit history. I have many other credit account and there is no single late payment record im my account history, except this one. I am sure that I have paid the account in full when I closed it and I do not owe anything to telewest. I have called telewest, explained the situation and requested to clean it up immediately. I said that they have commited act of defamation and as result my reputation and good name was damaged and I was unable to get access to credit with a reasonable rates. I asked them to remove the record from my credit history completely. They confirmed that I do not owe them anything and agreed to send update to my record which would be updated on 15th of July. After I escalated the issue to a manager they promized to do it 'next week'. I also asked them to send me a letter stating that I do not owe them any money so that I can use it to appeal credit refusals. They refused to do it, even though I insisted and threatened with a legal action. Unfortunately I do not have any statements available. I had an account with them in 2002-2004. Can someone tell me if they used to charge late fees than? Could someone advise what options do I have please. Basically, what I am after is removal of that record from my credit history and refund of late fees if any. I am preparing Data Protection Act request.

A quick status update. Since I received final NO from YB I have been quite occupied with other matters and so far have not filed the claim. Today I finaly created an account with moneyclaim.gov.uk and started filling the forms. Well..., there is no rush. I am content with 8% interest which I will collect eventually. It turned out that the website only accepts addresses in England and Wales but not Scottish addresses. Customers relations of YB is located in Glasgow and therefore it was not accepted. To get around it I used address of branch where my account was opened (Bradford). Once I got to calculating interest I found out that I have missed a few charges when I sent them the first letter. To put things right I have very carefully checked all the statements again and revised list of charges. It grew up from 381 to 434 pounds. By the way, the 8% interest will be about 110 pounds. Now I am printing a letter with revised charges list based on LBA template. It will inform YB about revised list of disputed charges and will give them another 14 days or else... I am going to hand deliver this letter to a local branch ASAP. Do you think it is a reasonable way to handle it? How to hand deliver a letter? I understand I just go to a branch and give it to a receptionist. Is it right? Should I take a receipt for a letter or something like that?

Hello, I would like to report here on how I received refund of late fees from HSBC. In April 2006 I found out about the fact that late fees are unlawfull. Using online statements and creditr card statemets I calculated late fees charged during last 4 years. It turned out to be £183. I followed procedure described on this website. - 1st letter sent via registered mail to Customer Relations - HSBC responded quicky saying 'we are investigating' - next week another letter from HSBC 'we have investigated and all charges are in accordance with T&C, we are sorry that yopu are not happy.' - LBA sent via registered mail - HSBC: 'charges are lawfull and in accodrance wit T&C, but we've paid into your account £10' as a gesture of goodwill. - On the day when I was going to start using services of moneyclaim.co.uk got another letter from HSBC with words to the effect of 'we are confident that we would prevail if matter goes to a court, however, defending this case would be counter productive. Sign a paper saying that you accept 173£ as full and final settlement'. There were no confidentiality agreemenet. I signed that I accept £173. In a few days £173 was in my current account. I must note that overall I am quite happy with banking servises HSBC provides. I have with HSBC current account, savings account, brokerage account, offshore accounts, business account. I estimate that I pay well over £1000 per year for services provided by HSBC. On a good (for HSBC) day they make more money on services they provide to me that this £183 in late charges. This might have affected the way they have handled my late fees refund request. I think they made a good decition refunding the late fees and I will stay with HSBC for most of my banking needs in foreseeable future.

A story about marbles attempting to charge me 25£ late fee. I opened account with marbles in April 06. As soon as I get access to their website I logged in and setup up a direct debit minimal payments. The marbles website is so bad by the way, it loses auth info all every minute or so and asking to enter password all the time, it is next to impossible to do anything there besides checking recent transactions. So with great difficulties I have managed to setup that direct debit thing. A few days ago I have received a call from them and they said that my acount in arrears that they have any information about any direct debits and that I am such a bad boy and should pay up immediately. So I did, I paid 58£ using a debit card on the spot. They also have charged me 1£ for payment using a debit card. Today I received a statement and, surprise surprise, there is a 25£ late fee. I called them, explained the situation, explained that it is their fault in first place since they cannot maintain a website properly and lost my direct debit request. I also explained why such late fees are unlawfull and basically quted template letters from this website. They, of course, were trying to convince me that there are terms and conditions that I signed. And I answered that their T&C are not above of Law of England and Wales. Than I explained what I will do if the charge is nor refunded in full. Basically I told them the 1-2-3 aproach. 1st letter - 14 days - LBA - 14 days - Small court claim. Than they offered refun of 12.5£ as a gesture of goodwill. I said no way. Than it went on and on like a spiral, T&C, law, 50% refund and so on... Than I said that if the CS rep cannot refund the charge in full by some reason I would like to speak to the manager. After a minute on hold CS rep said that as a one time gesture of goodwill they will refund it in full this time. Happy End. P.S. I find the marbles credit card pathetic, low credit limit, unusable website, high interest. I will close the account as soon as 0% balance transfer promotion runs out.

Sure. As soon as I receive money from HSBC I'll post short report in HSBC thread and will do the questionaire as well.

I think I will wait untill the deadline even though YB has indicated that they are not prepared to settle. Plus or minus a few days will not change much. Besides, I do enjoy that 8% interest while I wait. BTW. Today I received an offer of settlement in full with no strings attached from HSBC. They of course do not admit any liability and state that it is purely to avoid legal and management cost of defending this case. Which, they say, they of course would win in court. ;-) I actually was considering to not continue with HSBC claim for now, because the amount is rather small and I am generally happy with HSBC. But since they have decided to settle and this is good for both parties. They will make much more than this small amount from my custom in years to come anyway.

Hello, Here is a short update on status of unixguy vs Yorkshire Bank Plc case. 28/04/06 LBA sent. 05/05/06 LBA received by YB (registered mail) 13/05/06 I have received another letter from YB saying that they have investigated the matter and that they already expained to me that their terms and conditions make it OK to charge me those charges, they do not consider the charges unreasonable, they are dissapointed that I am still not satisfied and that I may now refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman. I plan to file the claim for 381£ plus interest and reasonable expences on 19th of May 2006, giving them 14 days from the moment they have received the LBA.

28/04/06 Got a letter from YB saying something along the lines: we found that when the charges have been levied your account was in ofedraft over agreed limit, we gave you terms and conditions, it is your responsibility to ensure that there are enough funds are in the account to avoid ovedraft charges. I am actually quite impressed how quickly they have responded. It is time to send LBA I guess. There is no point to wait for the original deadline now that I have a negative response, right?

20/04/06 Paid of all debts with YB and closed my Yorkshire Bank account and credit card because I was quite angry that they have charged me a hefty ovedraft fine for being overdrawn a few pounds for a day. 23/04/06. Found out about OFT take on unfair bank charges. I have all my statements hence there were no need for requesting data about the charges. Calculated all overdraft fines taken by Yorkshire Bank during last four years. In 2002 they used to charge me 25£ plus 5£ a day while overdrawn later it was changed to 20£ plus 6£ daily and recently it was again changed to 20£ plus 8£ daily. It turned out that during 5 years I had the account with them they have charged me about 400£ in unfair overdraft fees. 24/04/06 Sent a letter (template from bankcharges.info) with list of all unfair charges and request for refund in full within 7 days or else... 27/04/06 Received a letter from a Customer Relations Manager saying basically: I've got your letter, we will investigate and let you know in due course, here is our Complaint Handling Procedure. Feel free to compain to Financial Ombudsman Service. ---- At this point I will wait untill the deadline in my original letter (1/05/06) and if the matter is still not settled I will send them the LBA from the library giving further 14 days to comply. I am just not quite sure if this is the best course of action. Maybe since I have received a (non)response I should send them LBA right away? Any suggestions and help is appreciated. Thanks. P.S. I have a similar case with HSBC, though there less than 200£ in unfair changes and I have my main accounts with them. Still I have sent them a similar letter requesting refund. No response from them yet.